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I love this quote from a post on the The Jewish Outreach Institute's blog". It's a bit of a Frankenstein quote of a quote, so I'll just put it in:
'the “problem” isn’t that Jews are falling in love with non-Jews, “it’s that Jews are not falling in love with Judaism.”'
One of the problems with blaming intermarriage for everything (apart from, you know, alienating Jews who don't like hearing that their marriage is worse than the Shoah) is that it allows the Jewish community to ignore the ways in which it's failing to give Jews a positive reason to get involved with Judaism. They can go on thinking that the synagogues would be full of happy engaged Jews if it weren't for those damn shiksas. I have Jewish friends who were estranged from Judaism long before they got interested in the opposite or the same sex. However, as long as they're still included on their parents' synagogue membership they'll be regarded as good non-assimilated Jews until they marry a non-Jew.
I think part of this is that a lot of Jewish organisations don't have much of an answer to the question "Why be/stay Jewish?" apart from Hitler and all that. It turns Judaism into a giant Ponzi scheme where the whole point of Judaism is to produce more Jews. I think Judaism is worth practising as an adult, whether on not you have or ever intend to have children. Do I, with a Christian husband, have a higher regard for the merits of Judaism than most Jewish community leaders?
'the “problem” isn’t that Jews are falling in love with non-Jews, “it’s that Jews are not falling in love with Judaism.”'
One of the problems with blaming intermarriage for everything (apart from, you know, alienating Jews who don't like hearing that their marriage is worse than the Shoah) is that it allows the Jewish community to ignore the ways in which it's failing to give Jews a positive reason to get involved with Judaism. They can go on thinking that the synagogues would be full of happy engaged Jews if it weren't for those damn shiksas. I have Jewish friends who were estranged from Judaism long before they got interested in the opposite or the same sex. However, as long as they're still included on their parents' synagogue membership they'll be regarded as good non-assimilated Jews until they marry a non-Jew.
I think part of this is that a lot of Jewish organisations don't have much of an answer to the question "Why be/stay Jewish?" apart from Hitler and all that. It turns Judaism into a giant Ponzi scheme where the whole point of Judaism is to produce more Jews. I think Judaism is worth practising as an adult, whether on not you have or ever intend to have children. Do I, with a Christian husband, have a higher regard for the merits of Judaism than most Jewish community leaders?